The Brother MFC-9325CW provides good print speed to small or micro offices looking for a color laser MFP.

As a small-office color multifunction printer (MFP), the Brother MFC-9325CW ($450 street) adds a couple of extras over the Brother MFC-9125CN ($400 street, 3.5 stars): WiFi connectivity and a port for a USB thumb drive. In our testing, it showed good speed for a color laser-class MFP in its price range. However, it stumbled on quality for both graphics and photos, which are the main reasons one would buy a color printer.

The MFC-9325CW can print, copy, scan, and fax. It lets you fax either from your computer (PC Fax), or standalone faxing without needing a computer. A front-facing port you can print JPEG and PDF files from (and scan files to) a USB thumb drive.

It includes a 35-page automatic document feeder (ADF) for unattended copying, scanning, or faxing of multi-page documents of up to legal size.

The MFP is compatible with the Brother iPrint&Scan app, which allows you to print or scan from an Apple, Android, or Windows 7 Phone mobile device on the same wireless network.

As an LED printer, the MFC-9325CW uses LEDs in place of lasers as a light source; LED printers are still considered laser class. They are often smaller than lasers, and this model is no exception: It’s reasonably compact at 15.7 by 16.9 by 19.3 inches (HWD) and weighing 50.5 pounds.

Paper capacity is 250 sheets, plus a one-page manual feed slot. It lacks an automatic duplexer for printing on both sides of a sheet of paper; the driver provides on-screen guidance for manual duplexing.

The control panel includes a 2-line monochrome display; a 4-way controller; an alphanumeric keyboard; Print, Copy, and Fax mode buttons (with 3 additional controls for each of these modes), and several other function buttons.

The MFC-9325CW connects to a PC via a USB cable, or to a network via Ethernet or WiFi. I tested it over an Ethernet connection with the drivers installed on a computer running Windows Vista.

Print Speed

The Brother MFC-9325CW’s print speed is competitive with other color MFPs in its price range. It printed out our business applications suite (as timed with QualityLogic's hardware and software) at 5.7 effective pages per minute (ppm), in line with its 19 page per minute rated speed for both color and monochrome, which should be about its print speed when printing text only. (Our test suite includes text pages, graphics pages, and pages combining text and graphics.) This effectively matches the Brother MFC-9125CN ($400 street, 3.5 stars), also rated at 19 pages per minute, which tested at 5.8 ppm. The Editors’ Choice Dell 2155cn (4 stars), rated at 24 ppm for both color and black output, edged the MFC-9325CW at an effective 5.9 ppm, while the Ricoh Aficio SP C240SF ($400 street, 4 stars), rated at 16 pages per minute for both color and mono, was a touch faster at an effective 6.3 ppm.

Output Quality

The MFC-9325CW’s text quality was right on par for a laser-class printer, which is to say very good. It’s fine for any business use short of ones that require very small fonts, such as demanding desktop publishing applications.

Graphics quality was sub-par for a color laser-class printer. Most graphics showed significant dithering, in the form of easily visible dot patterns. Some had mild banding, a pattern of faint bars of discoloration. Very thin, colored lines were all but lost in several illustrations. Some black backgrounds had a blotchy or faded look. (Before testing the MFC-9325CW, I had gently shaken all of the toner cartridges, as per Brother’s instructions as well as our standard procedure, to evenly distribute the toner within. The faded look was significant enough that I shook each cartridge again and re-ran the test, but this had no effect on the output.) The output was okay to show to immediate colleagues in an informal context, but I’d be hesitant to use it for reports or handouts.

Photo quality was slightly below par. Dithering and mild banding were again issues. Aliasing, the tendency for straight lines to have a saw-toothed look, was also an issue. A couple of prints had a slight greenish tint. The photo quality is adequate for printing out recognizable images from files or Web sites, but that’s about it.

The Brother MFC-9325CW showed good speed as a color laser-class MFP for a small office, comparable to the better models we’ve tested. Although text quality was good—as is typical of a laser-class printer—it lagged on photo and, especially, graphics quality. The graphics were more problematic than those of the MFC-9125CN , although because they use the same print engine and there are no other differences between them that should affect print quality, it may have been a quirk of the particular unit we tested.

The MFC-9325CW adds WiFi connectivity and a port for a USB thumb driver for only $50 more than you’d pay for the MFC-9125CN, so if either of those are important to your business, it might be the better choice of the two. The Ricoh Aficio SP C240SF is a little faster than the MFC-9325CW, and with slightly better output quality. The Editors’ Choice Dell 2155cn provides a well-rounded package, with good speed and superior output quality. It lacks the MFC-9325CW’s WiFi connectivity, though.

As Analyst for printers, scanners, and projectors, Tony Hoffman tests and reviews these products and provides news coverage for these categories. Tony has worked at PC Magazine since 2004, first as a Staff Editor, then as Reviews Editor, and more recently as Managing Editor for the printers, scanners, and projectors team.
In addition to editing, Tony has written articles on digital photography and reviews of digital cameras, PCs, and iPhone apps
Prior to joining the PCMag team, Tony worked for 17 years in magazine and journal...
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